"I'm so excited to win such a prestigious event and join the likes of
Huck Seed, Chris Ferguson and Phil Hellmuth as Heads-Up champion," Duke said in a press release. "I came into this tournament really focused and it
feels great to finally break through in this event."

Entering the event, Duke had made it out of the first round just once previously. She defeated Andy Bloch, Darvin Moon, Paul Wasicka, Jerry Yang and Dennis Phillips en route to facing Seidel, an eight-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner, in the finals.

Erik SeidelSeidel, who was winless in five previous appearances in the event, beat four past WSOP main event champions -- Huck Seed, Chris Moneymaker, Peter Eastgate and Scotty Nguyen -- and former WSOP main event runner-up David Williams en route to facing Duke.

Add 'em up and I was 33-30 overall for the tournament, good enough for a small, stressful win in Vegas if I actually had made 63 bets. One more bet, though: It'll be entertaining TV on April 18 when NBC kicks off its six-week run of episodes.